They crossed the river on a bridge of boats, and the Doctor informed his young companions that in times of high-water the boats are removed, for fear they may break away and be lost, and the crossing is made by means of a ferry-boat. The front of the city along the river is about three miles in extent, and as one looks at it from the other side there is an almost unbroken view of temples, towers, minarets, palaces, and ghauts, or broad stairways, leading down to the water. The river is about fifty feet deep by 2000 in width, and in time of flood rises thirty or forty feet and increases its width to fully half a mile. The city is on a cliff seventy or eighty feet above the river, and the ghauts rise from the edge of the stream to the crest of the cliff; they were originally magnificent structures, but are now broken in many places, in consequence of the washing away of their foundations. The buildings that rise on the summit of the cliff are of many styles of architecture, as they owe their origin to several different centuries and epochs. Many of them are spacious palaces, erected by wealthy princes who came here occasionally to bathe in the sacred river and wash away their sins. They are interspersed with temples and mosques, and altogether they present a magnificent panorama. An American traveller has given a fine description of the front appearance of Benares in the following: "When it is recollected that the buildings above are a hundred feet or more long, and four or five stories high; that the ghauts are eighty feet in height, and are themselves constructions of which any city might be proud; that this row of palaces, temples, and ghauts extends for two miles along the river bank, worthily terminated by the mosque of Aurengzebe, with its graceful minars, and the whole scene was lighted up by an Eastern sun, bringing out the gaudy colors of the dress of the people and the gilded ornaments of the mosques and temples, the reader may perhaps understand and pardon the enthusiasm excited in me by the splendid architectural effect of this river front, which cannot be paralleled or surpassed by any similar scene in India, or in the world." [Illustration: A WINDOW IN BENARES.]